A ballerina in a pot? The story behind our photo

Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Kari Brunson makes the best of her tiny, though chic, kitchen space in her Seattle condo. Brunson blogs about cooking on the P-I’s Web site. (Mike Urban/P-I)

In your P-I browsing this morning, some of you may have landed on this delightful photo, taken by P-I photographer Mike Urban. It accompanied P-I food writer Rebekah Denn’s profile of Kari Brunson, a cooking-ballerina-blogger extraordinaire who can also, apparently, squish herself into some sizable cookware.

Mike Urban

Intrigued by the complex physics that must’ve gone into this shoot, we asked Urban to tell us how (and why?!) he put this woman in a pot. His answers were illuminating — and hilarious …

Big Blog: How did this idea come about?

Mike Urban: I wanted to do something that combined food and dance, even if just in a theatrical sense. My first thought was to have her dance or leap and have food flying along with her. We pursued that line of thinking for half a day until it became clear that it was just too complicated; borrowing a studio space, timing, throwing food around … I realized it went against my keep-it-simple, improvisational style as well.

Always striving for “unexpected but obvious” in my portraiture, my next thought was a big pot.

The most uncomfortable part of the pre-shoot planning was asking her how much she weighed and how big her waist was (I am not telling) but heck, I needed to know how big a pot to get!

BB: How did she manage to get in the pot? What was that story?

MU: I placed the empty pot on her granite counter top with a wet cloth beneath it to protect the counter and keep the pot from slipping. I didn’t want a prima ballerina to tumble off the 10-inch-wide side counter confined in a pot. She stepped up onto the adjoining work counter, braced herself on my shoulder and slid in butt first.

BB: So it wasn’t her pot?

MU: It was not her pot. I borrowed it from the really nice “you wanna do what?” folks at Dick’s Restaurant Supply on 1st Avenue in Sodo.

BB: How long before you got the perfect shot?

MU: It looked extremely cool from the first lighting test shot. I lit it with a small softbox and a second bare strobe directly behind her. The pot utterly blended in with her stainless-chic modern kitchen. It only took about 30 frames to perfect. We had to stop only once to place napkins beneath the backs of her knees as the pot edge was uncomfortable.

During the short shoot she was clearly on fire and having fun doing it.

BB: Lastly — How did she get out of the pot?

MU: That was a trick. Turns out she didn’t have the same leverage getting out as in. I placed my arms around the pot with her in it, had her grab me around the neck, then I lifted her and the pot off the counter and basically dumped her out on her couch — or was it the floor? The whole shoot took less than an hour.

P.S. — Another of Urban’s photos today is raising eyebrows. As my editor put it, “He put the eagle on top of the eagle.” Click here to see what we’re talking about — it’s picture #14 in our Day in Pictures gallery.